Feeling a bit krafty this season?

Krafty Christmas ideas and how to emboss with a charm

Feeling a bit krafty this season? Here are a few ideas how to make a card, tag and gift wrap with kraft paper, doilies and some lovely embellishments from my2angels. 

Tracy sent me the new deer charm in antique bronze (also available in shiny gold!) and it is so lovely, I couldn't bear to use it only once. So I embossed a tag with it first! (I know you can't really see it on the above photo, but bear with me and all will be revealed)

The deer is 6cm tall, so a pretty decent size and chunky enough to go through my Cuttlebug without bending or breaking.

Take a piece of kraft cardstock (3x6"), lightly wet it and make the following "sandwich":

 A plate, silicon mat, cardstock (moist), charm, silicon mat, C plate. 

The sandwich could vary a little if you have a Bigshot or other machine. Just experiment.

Here is what it looks like after embossing: 

 All the details are nice and crisp, but it's stubtle enough to suit the gringiest of your friends.

Punch a pretty bottom border with a border punch. Spray glue a small doily on the tag (half on the front, half on the back) and cut off the top corners:

 Die cut a roundish shape (star, flower, etc) from a brown patterned paper, ink it with pinecone ink (which is the best brown ink in the world and matches everything!) and glue it on top of the doily. Fold it over and trim the corners.  

 Punch a hole and stick on one of those reinforcer thingies: 

 Tie a Christmas tree and bell charm on some red & white baker's twine and ink around the whole tag with the above mentioned pinecone ink and stamp a greeting:

 Done! 

If you make a bit of a production line, you can whip up a whole pile of these in no time. 1 piece of 12x12" cardstock will make 8 tags.

Now that you've embossed a million deer on tags it's time to stick that pretty deer charm down on a card!

Take a kraft card and emboss it with an embossing folder. 

The card packs from my2angels are a really good deal at 10 for $1.40, but I loved mine so much they're all used up. I used a 4x11" piece of kraft cardstock instead. 

Spray glue a doily on and layer 2 ribbons across the cards: 

brown organza scallop ribbon 

cotton lace

 Die cut a hexagon or other roundish shape from a brown patterned paper, ink the edges and attach two short lengths of antique bronze chain with 2 lobster clasps. 

 If your die cut shape doesn't have holes, punch 2 first. Glue the paper and chain down using Glossy Accents. 

 Add some dots with Liquid Pearls in platinum: 

Glue down the deer charm and you're done! 

For 10 cards you will need:

- 1 kraft card pack 

-10 doilies (11cm)

- 1x brown organza ribbon 

- 2x cotton lace 

- 1 antique bronze chain 

- 4x lobster clasps 

- 5x deer charms 

- some leftover brown patterned paper from your stash 

Presuming you already have an embossing folder, ink, Liquid Pearls and Glossy Accents, that's just a little over $1.80 per card.

If you haven't run out of puff by now, you might want to wrap some pressies next: 

Wrap your gift in kraft wrapping paper (from the cheap shop) and spray glue a doily over the top edge (size will depend on the size of your present).

  Cut out 3 stars and fold them as shown in my button & stars wreath post (I had some left from the wreath). 

Wrap some red & white baker's twine around the present twice, tie on a candy cane charm and finish it with a bow. 

Glue down the stars like shown in the wreath post and stamp or handwrite the name.  Done! 

This looks great for a pile of presents. I would show you, but they are on the ship as we speak; slowly, slowly making their way round the world to my family (thanks Australia Post for exorbitant airmail prices!). Christmas in January is also nice, right?

Geli